Underpowered Howard: A LitRPG Adventure

by John L. Monk

  This particular idol was one of the good ones. It only consumed experience points and didn’t saddle you with an addiction. The #9 version, male or female, was notorious for enslaving its users through repetitive use. It traveled with you on adventures, siphoning experience from kills just like a party member while not contributing in the slightest. In and of itself, not the most horrible of hauntings, but definitely creepy, and almost impossible to shake once you’d been ensnared.

  “Crap,” I said.

  In addition to being one of the better idols, this one was rare and hideously expensive. Though I didn’t like Jane and wanted nothing to do with her, I wasn’t a thief. I mean, I’d played a thief. But all my thieving had been from dragons, sleeping gods, and ancient temples.

  Wanting to be rid of both the idol and Jane’s personal photos, I packed it all away and clomped back downstairs to confront Bernard.

  “Here’s her stuff,” I said, holding it out to him.

  “Whose stuff?” he said with perhaps the worst poker face I’d ever seen.

  “Jane's.”

  “Ah, that who,” he said. “I’m afraid I can’t take it from you. She may be my paladin, but I can’t go around giving her things. She has to earn them. You know the rules. Nothing in Mythian is free.”

  “But you told her about me!”

  “And got blasted halfway to Ward 4 for it, too,” he said. “Hurt like hell, and I haven’t hurt like hell in … oh, uh… Hmm. You know, I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve experienced physical pain before. Can’t recommend it. And I’m not doing it again. You like giving things away? Do it yourself. By the way, that flagon in your room is a loan, not a gift. I can’t give away stuff to you, either.”

  Stifling a low growl, I said, “Never mind that. Where is she?”

  “Jane?”

  I just waited.

  “Right,” he said. “Um, now technically I’m not supposed to tell you that, see? But I can give you a hint that might help.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “She knows you’re here. Or rather, she suspects it. She’ll probably find you before you find her. Maybe just wait her out? Oh, and probably don’t leave town, given the state of your karma…” He shook his head. “You and your little games. I know you won’t listen, but I’d advise you to quit with this necromancer business and move on. You’ve never been a warlock before. Maybe try that if you’re feeling evil.”

  Before I said something regrettable, I left Bernard at the bar and found a group of unhappy noobs sitting at a rickety wooden table. They were nursing free ales, nibbling on loaves of Bernard’s delicious black bread, and not talking very much.

  Without asking, I pulled up a chair and said, “Hi, I’m Howard. How’d you like to make some gold and learn a few things in the process?”

  Chapter Twelve

  There’s a little-understood tab in everyone’s character sheet called the “Ambulareum.” Here, enterprising players can set up quests for other players. Prizes must always include gold or items, which are provided by the quest giver. Experience awards are given by the game, commensurate to the difficulty of the tasks performed. Thus, a quest to move a chair from one side of a room to the other would result in no XP, whereas one to kill a hobgoblin and “bring back proof” might award several hundred, provided the player was low enough for it to be a challenge.

  Typically, the only people who used the feature were guild masters initiating new members, though it was sometimes used by busy alchemists or enchanters to gather components without leaving their shops. In theory, I could have started a quest for Parker to gather information about the lich spell. The only reason I hadn’t was it didn’t fit our customer-client relationship.

  There was another type of player who ran quests: that rare breed with damaged karma.

  The most common way to bring one’s self back into alignment with the game was to relax in the Sanctuary of Heroes’ Landing—an easy time-out process that could take years, depending on how in deficit you were. Or, if the option was available, you could Give Up. More industrious players, provided they had money and imagination, could work it off by giving players things to do.

  Fortunately, there was always a surplus of noobs at Bernard’s Inn, and all of them were dying for something to do—especially if it meant XP and treasure. The six noobs I chose were as sorry a group of homely snivelers as I’d ever seen, but I was going to change all that.

  “All right, you bums,” I growled at them, glaring like the stern taskmaster I was. “The first thing you’ll do is an escort quest. You’ll get 2500 XP for it and 25 gold each. Enough to purchase your first profession starter and some cheap, good gear.”

  After writing the quest into the Ambulareum description box, the experience points reward auto-populated. I had to write-in the gold reward, too, next to a box labeled “Escrow.” As soon as I did, 150 gold disappeared from my coin purse.

  Bob was a greasy-haired man with a thin, sallow face. He cleared his throat and said, “Um … ah, so what are we gonna escort?”

  “Each other,” I said. “How many of you have been robbed or killed since entering the game?”

  All but two of them raised their hands. The two who didn’t had already purchased profession starters for wizards and rangers.

  I shook my head in disgust. “The first thing you’re gonna learn is how to work together toward an objective. Your quest is to find a way to circle Heroes’ Landing once, outside the walls. But there’s a catch. To succeed, you must complete at least one successful loop without dying. You can do whatever you want to make that happen except enlist the help of players not on the quest. Once you’ve completed the task, come back here and I’ll give you your reward.”

  “But what about the bandits?” someone said.

  “They’re not bandits, they’re serial killers,” someone else said. “They just like killing!”

  I nodded. “Yep, they do. Bunch of freaks in this game. You’ll have to avoid them.”

  “But they’ll kill us all,” a woman named Felicia said.

  “All of you?” I said. “You weren’t gonna travel in a big, slow group, were you?”

  “But you said we had to stick together!”

  “Were those my exact words?”

  A man named Allen said, “He’s saying we should work together, not travel together. We should split up, right?”

  I shrugged. “That’s on you guys. I wish you luck. Oh, yeah—you have twenty-four hours to do this. Starting … now!”

  Groaning and cursing all around, but also a challenging light in the eyes of most of them. People who came to Mythian were almost entirely gamers from the real world, and gamers enjoyed challenges.

  As they filed out of the inn, Felicia turned back and said, “After we do this, can we get a normal quest, please?”

  “Your next quest will be so normal your head’ll explode,” I said with a smile.

  Felicia waited for me to say something more. When I didn’t, she rolled her eyes and left with the others.

  There was a knock on my door seven hours later. It was Bernard.

  “They’re back,” he said. “Mighty cruel thing you’re doing, sending them out like that. They’ve been slaughtered something fierce. Why not leave quest-giving to someone better equipped for it?”

  “Like you?” I said.

  “Couldn’t hurt,” he said, then left grumbling to himself.

  I’d been in my room all day reading Jane's dogeared fantasy novels. In the real world, if I read more than an hour or two, I quickly got sleepy and needed a nap. The experience was so much better in Mythian. And without the need to get up for toilet breaks, it was seamless and unbroken cover to cover.

  If I could keep the quests going round the clock, I’d have enough recovered karma to be merely unlucky. I’d lose at dice more often. Outside the gates, I’d probably stumble on a few random monsters I’d normally have missed. But no more whales, thank goodness.

  “Did you do it
?” I said loudly behind the noobs, startling them from their hushed conversation. I knew the answer already, but the sacred forms of quest-giving were time-honored. Also, I wanted to scare them.

  “Yes,” Sonya said. “Eventually. Only one who didn’t get killed at least once was Keith.”

  Keith smiled widely and showed everyone his tiny noob bicep, garnering a few laughs.

  Sonya wasn’t done. “But that was a lot of work for 25 gold. Also, where’s the XP?”

  “Whoops, hold on,” I said.

  I navigated to the Ambulareum and mentally clicked Confirm next to a glowing Completed box. When I did, the quest was completed.

  “Woot!” Keith shouted. “I leveled!”

  A chorus of “Me too” echoed around the table from everyone except Sonya. I squinted her and saw she was no longer level 1, but level 2. She squinted me back. Not to read my level (impossible, as I was higher) but because she had more to say.

  “As I was saying, 25 gold’s not enough. It took forever because some jerk kept waiting for us to almost finish, and then he’d kill us. Then someone else did it—probably his friend. Bunch of jerks, I swear.”

  I rubbed my chin shrewdly, then nodded in resignation. “Fine. You’re gonna bankrupt me, but if it’ll keep you all from crying, I’ll give you another … oh, how’s a hundred gold each sound?”

  “200,” she countered.

  “150,” I said, “and not a coin more or I’ll find less expensive questers to grace with my generosity of spirit.”

  “Deal!” Keith said, glaring at her.

  After I paid them, they wanted to know what else they could do for me.

  “Two things,” I said. “Have a look at this.”

  I pulled a picture of Jane from her bag and passed it around. “This woman’s a notorious noob killer. Your job is to find her in the city and report back her location. I want to know where she lives. You’ll have to be discrete. If she spots you…”

  “How much if we find her?” Sonya said.

  I smiled. “You have the makings of a leader. Anyone ever tell you that? Lemme see how much it’s worth, hold on.”

  I plugged in the description, and Mythian worked the reward out to be 3500 experience points. When I told them, they grumbled for a bit, then agreed to do it.

  A look to the bar showed Bernard watching us with a frown.

  “And I’ll throw another 150 on top of it,” I said.

  That got them smiling again.

  “So what’s the other task?” Sonya said.

  “This one’s super easy, but complete both quests before coming back.”

  Using a pen and paper from my room, I wrote out what I wanted and where to get it from. I then handed her 1300 gold.

  “Get the best price you can and keep the change,” I said. “The XP for this one’s almost nothing, though. But it’s good gold if you’re a shrewd negotiator.”

  I quickly told them what I wanted.

  “Consider it done,” she said. Then, to the others: “Come on, everyone. Let’s get started before he comes to his senses.”

  I spent the next day preparing future quests for the noobs and reading novels. Just before evening, they returned.

  “Did you find her?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Sonya said. “Pretty fast, too.”

  Sure enough, that quest as well as the other one were both marked Complete.

  “So why’d you take so long?” I said.

  “Because she stayed there forever!”

  “Stayed where?”

  Pointing at the doors, she said, “Out there. Across the road, all day, watching the inn. We had to keep swapping people in and out so she didn’t catch on. When she left, we followed her to her apartment. I didn’t even know you could have apartments in Mythian. I’m in love! Real swanky part of town, too. She’s there right now, or last I saw.”

  Sonya gave me the street name and apartment number. She was correct in her description of the area—Glimmering Heights was where all the rich people lived. Clearly, a vow of poverty wasn’t a requirement for paladins.

  “Did you get my toy?” I said.

  “Right here,” Keith said, placing a small wooden box on the table. The box was painted with party balloons and colorful ribbons.

  “How much did it cost?” I said.

  Keith said, “Eight hundred and change.”

  I grinned in admiration. “Good job on the price.”

  “We went to four places,” he said.

  After awarding the XP and paying them, I doled out ten more quests that’d keep them busy for the next week—kill quests, gathering quests, and repeatable combo quests where they’d slay monsters in Under Town, dissect them for potion components, and then sell them at Darcy’s Elixirs & Mixers. I couldn’t help but smile thinking of her reaction to the sudden barrage of bloodstained noobs.

  When they left, I went back to my room, opened the box, and pulled out a shimmering hood.

  Creepy Party Mask

  Duration: 10 minutes

  Uses: Once per hour

  Description: Just a bit of fun in a bleak world sorely in need of it. Using this mask will change your appearance, voice, and smell. Also hides your level and class from squinting eyes.

  Caution: Attempts to steal items or fool others into giving you items, money, or their dignity (ahem!) will cause this mask to fail. Likewise impersonating other players. Everything else is fair game!

  “Perfect,” I said and stuffed it in my bag. Then I went downstairs and peeked out the front doors.

  No sign of Jane.

  For the next hour, I traversed Heroes’ Landing with an eye out for my holier-than-thou nemesis but didn’t see her. Glimmering Heights was on the far side of the city in an elevated area with its own gate, though of course anyone in Mythian could go there. The gate was just for appearances. The real barrier to entry was the prohibitive cost of housing. Last I’d checked, the rent for even a modest room was close to 10 thousand a month. But, wow, they were worth it. Rentals in Glimmering Heights were small on the outside and palaces on the inside, with heated pools, media rooms, and myriad “skins” to give each home its own unique look: futuristic, antique, modern, renaissance, rustic, French country, Scandinavian… If I wasn’t running quests for noobs I’d probably be staying there, or maybe up in one of the towers.

  I found Jane's address easily and saw she hadn’t picked any of the palatial freestanding buildings, with stables for dragon mounts, lucid groundskeepers, and ornate statuary. Apartments in Glimmering Heights were brownstones with gothic-looking entryways meant to exude a sense of superiority.

  Which, I thought, fit the kidnapping paladin perfectly.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said.

  I slipped on the mask and concentrated, willing myself to look like Bernard the Innkeeper. Though the item description had stated quite clearly the mask couldn’t be used to impersonate players, I’d seen people impersonate Lord Snoot, Crunk, Bernard, and a number of other lucids over the years with no problem. This time was no exception. I grew two feet taller, and a timer appeared in the upper corner of my vision, counting down from ten minutes. Plenty of time for what I wanted to do.

  Feeling oddly self-conscious, I reached out and knocked on the door. And waited.

  And waited.

  Worried about the timer, I knocked again more loudly. Nine minutes left. Now less than nine. What if she’d left? I should have ordered the noobs to stay and keep an eye on her.

  “Dammit,” I said and banged loudly. I continued to bang until the door opened to reveal a bewildered Jane.

  “Bernard? I was just meditating. What are you doing here … again?”

  “Can’t stay long, there’s been a change of plans. You must travel to Ward 3 on an important mission. I can’t tell you why, other than it’s tied up with that Howard business from before.”

  “I thought you wanted me to follow him,” she said, taken aback.

  “Aha! But that was before the thing happened
that I can’t tell you about. Because … well, you know.” I looked overhead and gave a small shiver. “Remember?”

  Jane nodded. “Yes, but… What if he gets away? Are you sure you don’t want to come in?”

  I raised my large hands in protest. “No time for that. Too much to do—and you need to get moving. But to answer your question, no, he won’t get away, not until his karma’s stitched back right with the game.”

  “His karma?”

  Affecting a look of surprise, I clamped a hand over my mouth. “You didn’t hear that. But yes, he has to stay a while. A good long while, and we’ll leave it at that.”

  Jane's eyes hardened in anger. “So that’s how he got out! I knew he couldn’t have done it fair and square.”

  Despite the time ticking away, this struck me as curious. “But there was no way out of that maze except Giving Up.”

  “Exactly! And he cheated. Typical necromancer…”

  “Uh … right,” I said. “Now, about that task: I need you to travel to Ward 3, as I said. Once there, find an ancient city in the northeast called Khey’anos.”

  “I know where it is, though I’ve only flown over it. What do I do when I get there? Some treasure? Secret lore? Special ingredient? Will I need a group?”

  Just barely, I kept from laughing. She looked so serious.

  “None of those things, and you won’t need a group,” I said. “Find the entrance to the sewer system and search for a wall with writing on it, almost like graffiti. Read the words aloud, then come back and meet me at the Proficient Pilgrim for more instructions. This will be the last time we talk until then, I’m afraid. Because, you know…” I looked overhead and again gave a small shiver. “Oh, and before I forget, I retrieved your possessions. Here.”

  I handed Jane her bottomless bag.

  “What? How did you… Have you talked to him?”